The Evolutionary Void Part 18

Macsen draped his arm around Edeard's shoulder and drew him aside with several insincere smiles directed at the group he'd been chatting with. "You want us to return to the old days? After everything you did?"

"No ..." Edeard began wearily.

"Good, because I for one am not prepared to see everything we've achieved s.h.i.t upon from a great height just because you're menopausal."

"I am not ..." Okay, maybe he hasn't changed that much Okay, maybe he hasn't changed that much. "All right, I'm a little sour myself right now, I admit that I went to see the Mayor three days ago to press for the livestock certificate expansion."

"I heard. So he said no? You'll be Chief Constable in under three weeks. You can apply some pressure in the Grand Council, push it through yourself."

"I won't do that though," Edeard said forcefully. "Because Trahaval was right, wasn't he? You must have seen it. We can't extend the livestock certificates to sheep and pigs, for the Lady's sake. It was an idiotic idea. Who wants that much paperwork? Don't you remember the time we drew up the one hundred list? We didn't see daylight for weeks on end, we were so busy with all those forms and reports and chits. A great bunch of extra certificates is simply pushing the job off on clerks. Our job! If rustling is to be stopped, it should be by constables enforcing the law. What was I thinking?"

"Ah. Yes. Definitely menopausal."

"I was letting things slip. It's complacency, and it was stupid of me. But not now, not anymore."

"Oh, Lady, so now what? You want to go back out there with a couple of regiments? Take the city's finest and haul the provincial militia along so you can catch sheep rustlers? Is that what it's come to?"

"It hasn't come to that. You don't get it. We've been sailing along these last few years; we have no goals anymore. It was never just about winning, beating Owain and Buate; it was always about what happened afterward. Well, this is afterward and it matters to me. It matters a lot."

"All right, then." Macsen heaved out a big sigh. "I'll kiss the mistress of Sampalok goodbye and ride out with you again. But you've got to admit it, we're really getting too old and fat for this kind of thing. How about we just sit in the headquarters tent and leave the glory bits to your Dylorn, my Castio, and all the other youngsters?"

Edeard's eyes automatically gazed down on Macsen's belly. We're not all so old and fat, thank you We're not all so old and fat, thank you. In fact he was rather proud of himself for keeping his daily run going all this time. Today he could still climb the stairs in the ziggurat without getting out of breath. There were even running clubs in the city now, and the big autumn race from the City Gate across the Iguru to Kessal's Farm and back was an annual event, with more people entering each year.

"No," Edeard said. "That's not the way to handle this. We have to change the way station captains and sheriffs operate. They need to gather more information, maybe put together some dedicated teams of constables who don't just spend their days out on patrol."

"More special Grand Council committees?"

"No, not like that. Just a group of officers, those with some experience and a little smarter than average, who'll devote more of their time to investigating all the aspects of a crime, trying to build up a pattern. Like we used to do. You remember how I spied on Ivarl to find out what he was up to?"

"I remember what happened to you when you did."

"All I'm saying is we need to get smarter, to adapt. Life is different now. It would be the worst kind of irony if we're the ones who can't keep up and benefit."

Macsen gripped Edeard's shoulder, smiling broadly. "You know what your real trouble is?"

"What?" Edeard asked, though he'd already guessed the answer.

"You're a glory glutton."

--- It was the third night Edeard had lain awake in the big bedroom on the tenth floor of the Culverit ziggurat. He really should have been able to sleep. The room was perfect for him; he'd spent years altering it, expanding the arching windows that led out onto the hortus, changing the lights to circles that shone with a warm pink-white radiance, reducing the ceiling height, producing alcoves for which Kristabel had commissioned furniture that fit exactly, toning the walls to a subtle gray-blue so they matched the specially woven carpet. Even the spongy bed mattress had been adjusted until it achieved exactly the firmness both he and Kristabel wanted. They'd argued over her fondness for draping all the furniture in lace, compromising with a few tasteful frills. Even the curtains were a stylish pale russet, although they did have thick jade piping and ta.s.sels. The ta.s.sels had been one of the things he'd compromised on, but he really couldn't blame them for his not being able to sleep.

Kristabel shifted beside him, pulling the silk sheets about. He held his breath until she was sleeping deeply again. There had been a time, not all that long ago, when he would have nuzzled up to her when she did that and they'd start caressing and kissing. There would be giggles and moaning, then sheets and blankets would be flung aside, and they'd work each other's bodies to that wondrous physical pinnacle they knew exactly how to reach.

Gazing over at her in the dusky light that crept around the curtains, he wondered when all that had ended. Not that it had finished; they still made love several times a month. Whereas it used to be several times a night Whereas it used to be several times a night. Kristabel was still beautiful. She was not girlish anymore, which he didn't want, anyway; her hair was starting to lighten, and there were a few lines around her eyes. But physically she was still very desirable. He could remember only too well all the cursing and misery after each child about how much weight she'd put on during the pregnancy and how she'd never look good again. Then there'd be the long fight to get back in shape, with fierce discipline over what she ate and then the kind of exercise that put his morning run to shame.

But she no longer wore the short lacy negligees he used to adore, and they showered separately and didn't talk and shout each other down; nor did they laugh, not the way they used to. Developing dignity, he'd thought; at least that was what he told himself. The kind of dignity that comes with growing up and taking responsibilities seriously. And their ever-increasing burden of duties and how tired that always left them. Though it shouldn't; all they had to do was delegate.

We're just not the same people. That's not a fault thing. Live with it. Even so, his traitor mind nearly sent his farsight creeping out to the House of Blue Petals. Ra.n.a.lee would doubtless have that bewitched lad performing his strenuous best for her, corrupting him beyond salvation. Her love life had never ebbed.

No! It wasn't fair to blame s.e.x for everything. Att.i.tudes, too, had hardened over the years. Edeard had always favored moving the city toward a full democracy, slowly reducing the power of the Upper Council and expanding the authority of the representatives. It would never be a swift transition; he fully expected that he wouldn't live to see its conclusion. But as long as the process could be started, he would be content. However, with all the other changes and reforms within the city and the strengthening of bonds with the provinces, that seemed to have been delayed year after year. Kristabel hadn't helped, not as he'd a.s.sumed she would. When she finally had taken her seat in the Upper Council as mistress of Haxpen, there had been too many other, more immediate, causes to support. As part of Finitan's voting bloc she was expected to advance the Mayor's new legislation and budgets and taxes. None of them had been focused on expanding general democracy. It wasn't fair to blame s.e.x for everything. Att.i.tudes, too, had hardened over the years. Edeard had always favored moving the city toward a full democracy, slowly reducing the power of the Upper Council and expanding the authority of the representatives. It would never be a swift transition; he fully expected that he wouldn't live to see its conclusion. But as long as the process could be started, he would be content. However, with all the other changes and reforms within the city and the strengthening of bonds with the provinces, that seemed to have been delayed year after year. Kristabel hadn't helped, not as he'd a.s.sumed she would. When she finally had taken her seat in the Upper Council as mistress of Haxpen, there had been too many other, more immediate, causes to support. As part of Finitan's voting bloc she was expected to advance the Mayor's new legislation and budgets and taxes. None of them had been focused on expanding general democracy.

He knew he shouldn't confuse personality with politics. But it was hard not to blame her for being part of the Grand Family setup, which she bitterly resented.

Edeard hated himself for having such doubts about himself and Kristabel, doubts and questions that had only increased since the appearance of the Skylord. That was the real root of his sleepless nights. Since the afternoon when the Liliala Hall ceiling had cleared for him, he'd been striving to sense the Skylord's thoughts, and he'd failed miserably.

Now the frustration was starting to cloud his thoughts, making him p.r.i.c.kly and despondent. Worse, everyone close to him knew it, which annoyed him even more, especially as he couldn't tell them the reason.

He let out a frustrated sigh and rolled cleanly off the bed without waking Kristabel. His third hand s.n.a.t.c.hed up the clothes he wanted, and they drifted silently through the air behind him as he tiptoed out into the corridor. Once he was dressed, he pulled his black cloak about him and marched off to the central stairs. When he reached them, he threw a concealment around himself and simply vaulted over the banister rails to plummet the ten floors down to the ground. It was stupid, and exhilarating, and he hadn't done anything like it for years.

Makkathran buoyed him up as he asked, controlling his fall. When he reached the floor, his boots landed with a gentle thud. He strode through the deserted cloisters of the ground floor to the ziggurat's private mooring platform. It was long past midnight, which left very little traffic on the Great Major Ca.n.a.l. He waited for a minute as a gondola slipped into the High Pool, its lantern disappearing around the curving wall. Then, with the waterway clear, he reached out with his third hand and steadied the water. Another thing he hadn't done in years.

Edeard ran straight across the ca.n.a.l. When he was halfway across, the farsight caught him. It was so inevitable inevitable, he was almost ready for it.

"I'll find you one day," he longtalked down the strand of perception that stretched across the city to Cobara. "You know I will."

The farsight ended so fast, it was as if it had been broken. Edeard grinned to himself and reached a public mooring platform, where the wooden steps took him up to Eyrie.

The crooked towers stretched away ahead of him. Around the lower quarter of each one, slender streaks of orange light shone out of their dark wrinkled fascias, illuminating the deserted streets that wove between them. But the upper sections were jet black, cutting sharply across the nebula-swathed sky.

It was instinct that drew him there. The Lady's scriptures spoke of how the ill and infirm and old used to wait atop the towers; then, as the Skylord flew above the city, their souls would ascend to be guided away from Querencia. He reached the tower close to the Lady's grand church, where so many years ago conspirators from the families had thrown him off the top. It was one of the tallest in Eyrie, which would put him as close to the Skylord as anything in Makkathran. Pushing aside any reservations about the location and its resonances, he walked up the central staircase, spiraling around and around until he finally reached the top and stood on the broad circular platform that crowned the tower. Eight spikes stuck up from the edge, their twisted tips stretching a further forty feet above the platform itself.

The nostalgia he was feeling now wasn't good. This was where Medath had waited after luring him up. This was where the other Grand Family conspirators had overpowered him andHe grimaced as he stared over at the section of the lip where he'd been shoved over. After so long, over forty years, he really shouldn't have been bothered by it, yet the memory was disturbingly clear. So much so that he even searched with farsight to make perfectly sure no one else was around.

Stupid, Edeard scolded himself. He abruptly sat down cross-legged on the platform and tipped his head back to gaze up at the sky. Gicon's Bracelet was visible above the spikes in the western hemisphere, the planets gleaming bright just off the border of the Ku nebula's marvelous aquamarine glow. Even though he knew exactly where to look, the Skylord wasn't yet visible to the naked eye. Instead Edeard called to it. All of his mind's strength was focused into a single thought of welcome, one he visualized streaming out through s.p.a.ce.

And eventually the Skylord answered.

Finitan had retired to one of the houses the Eggshaper Guild maintained in Tosella for its distinguished elderly members who'd retired from active duties. It was a big boxy structure with a swath of delicate magenta and verdure Plateresque-style decoration running around the outside of the third floor. There were no guards posted outside, only a ge-hound curled up beside the gate, which took one look at Edeard and yawned. Back when Edeard had arrived in the city, every large building had had some kind of sentry detail. Families and guilds had maintained almost as many guards as the city regiments. Now their numbers were dwindling, with old duties like the door sentry handed over to genistars once again.

Edeard walked through the open wooden gates into the central courtyard, where white and scarlet flowering gurkvine grew up the walls to the upper balconies and a fountain played cheerfully in the central pond. Several ge-chimps were tending the heavily scented flower beds, with another sweeping the gray-white flooring. He went up the broad central stairs to the third floor.

A young Novice was waiting at the top of the stairs, her blue and white robe immaculate. She bowed her head slightly. "Waterwalker."

"How is he?"

"A better day, I think. The pain is not so great this morning. He is lucid."

"He's taking the potions, then?"

She smiled in regret "When he wants to or when the pain becomes too much."

"Can I see him?"

"Of course."

Finitan's room had long slim windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. The walls and ceiling were white, and the floor was a polished red-brown flecked with emerald in the shape of minute leaves, as if they'd been fossilized in the city substance. It was furnished equally simply, with a desk and several deep chairs. The bed was large, half-recessed in a semicircular alcove. Finitan was sitting up in the center of it, his back resting on a pile of firm pillows.

"I'll be outside," the Novice said quietly, and closed the heavy carved door.

Edeard walked over to the bed, and his third hand lifted one of the chairs over. He sat down and studied his old friend. Finitan was quite thin now; the disease seemed to be consuming him from within. Even so, up until a few months ago he had weathered it well; now he was visibly frail. Blue veins stood proudly from pale skin, and what was left of his fine hair was a faded gray.

Edeard's farsight examined the body, exposing the malignant growths around his lungs and thorax.

"Don't be so b.l.o.o.d.y nosy," Finitan wheezed.

"Sorry. I just ..."

"Want to see if it's retreating, if I'm getting better?"

"Something like that, yes."

Finitan managed a weak smile. "Not a chance. The Lady is calling. To be honest, I'm always quite surprised these days when I still find myself waking up of a morning."

"Don't say that."

"For the Lady's sake, Edeard, accept I am dying. I did quite some time ago. Or are you going to start making politician's talk about how I'll be up and about soon? Cheer my spirits up?"

"I'm not going to do that."

"Thank the Lady. Those b.l.o.o.d.y Novices do. They think it helps, while what it really does is get me depressed. Can you imagine that? I've got a gaggle of twenty-year-old girls fussing over me, and all I want is for them to shut up and get out. What kind of an ending is that for a man?"

"Dignified?"

"Sod dignity. I know how I'd rather go. Wouldn't that be something, eh? Scandalizing everyone at the finish."

Edeard grinned, though he felt like crying. "That would indeed be something. Perhaps the doctor knows of some concoction that would give you a final burst of strength."

"That's better. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. Especially now, when you should be out campaigning. How's it going, by the way?"

"Well, Trahaval's a certainty. I'm not sure about me; in private, my campaign people tell me there's only a couple of percent in it. Yrance might be returned as Chief Constable." He bit back on his irritation.

Finitan smiled broadly and rested his head back on the mound of pillows. "And that annoys you, doesn't it? That's the wonderful thing about you, Edeard; after all this time the one thing you of all people cannot do is shield your emotions properly. It's amazing that that's the only psychic ability you lack. So I can tell how it irks you that you, the Waterwalker, should have to struggle for votes after all you've done for the city."

"It's true. I didn't expect quite such a struggle, yes."

"Ha. You're just angry because people have forgotten. Only forty years since the banishment, and you get taught in history cla.s.s. That's what you are to a whole generation, a boring afternoon stuck in school when they could be outside having fun."

"Thank you for that."

"Always does good to knock politicians down a peg or two."

"I'm not a poli-"

Finitan chuckled, which turned to an alarming cough.

Edeard leaned forward in concern. "Are you all right?"

"No, I'm dying."

"There's a difference between facing up to your fate and just being plain morbid."

Finitan waved him silent. A gla.s.s of water drifted through the air and finished by his lips. He took a sip. "Wonderful; my psychic powers remain intact. How ironic is that?"

"It's not your brain that's affected."

"I hate the brew they give me to numb the pain. It tastes vile, and then I spend the day dozing. I don't want to spend the day dozing, Edeard."

"I know."

"What's the point in that? My soul will soon soar free. Why spend the time bedbound and humbled? I hate this existence. Lady forgive me, I want it to end."

Edeard could feel his cheeks flush and knew Finitan would be scrutinizing his thoughts with expert ability.

"Ah," the old man said in satisfaction, and closed his eyes. "So what truly brings you here?"

"A Skylord is coming."

"Dear Lady!" Finitan twisted around abruptly and winced at the spike of pain the motion caused. "How do you know?"

"The city revealed it to me. Then last night I spoke to it." He smiled warmly and gripped Finitan's cold hand in his own. "It comes to see if any of us have reached fulfillment. It comes to guide our souls to the Heart."

"Fulfillment?" There were tears spilling from Finitan's eyes. "Do I look fulfilled? The Lady d.a.m.n its arrogance. By what right does it judge us?"

"Finitan, dearest friend, you are fulfilled. Look at the life you have lived, look at what you have accomplished. I'm asking you, I'm begging; go to a tower in Eyrie. Accept its guidance to Odin's Sea. Show Makkathran, show the world, that we have become worthy again. Let people have that ultimate hope once more. Show them your way is the right way."

"A Skylord will never take my sorry soul anywhere other than Honious."

"Stop that; it will. Trust me one last time. You read my emotions, but I can see your soul, and it is glorious."

"Edeard ..."

"If you go, if you are worthy of guidance, other Skylords will know; they will come to Querencia again. Our lives will be complete. Everything you and I have achieved together, all that it cost, all that pain we endured to wrest the city from the grip of darkness and decay, will have been worthwhile."

For a long while Finitan said nothing. Finally, he sighed. "Honious take me, I'm dying anyway. Why not?"

"Thank you." Edeard leaned over the bed and kissed the old man's brow.

The decision seemed to have cheered Finitan up. He pulled his pale lips into a rueful pout. "Well, at least the election's over. What does it feel like to be Chief Constable?"

"How do you see that? Have you got a timesense you've been hiding all these years?"

"You're going to be the Waterwalker again. You're going to be the one who calls the Skylord to Querencia. Then in front of the whole city you'll hoist me up to the top of the tower so I can be guided to the Heart. You, Edeard. Just you. Who's not going to vote for a savior like that?"

--- Edeard announced the Skylord's arrival that afternoon as he was making a campaign speech to Eggshaper Guild apprentices in Ysidro. There was silence in the hall at first, as if his words hadn't quite made sense. Then came a swell of surprise and incredulity. Longtalk calls shot out to friends and family. Dozens of hands were raised, and questions shouted.

"It's very simple," the Waterwalker said. "The Skylords are flying to Querencia again. The first will be here in just over a week. It will guide Finitan through Odin's Sea to the Heart."

"How do you know?" several apprentices barked out simultaneously.